28 
HISTORICAL PART 
of operation. Starting from this point, only a spark of genius 
was required for Fulton to invent the steamship and 
Stephenson a steam carriage, thus applying the force of 
steam to locomotion. 
Hereby the way was prepared for the realisation of the 
superfluous industrial and agricultural products on a far 
vaster scale; and only a slight step was required to make the 
ruling tendency the production in large quantities of all 
commodities required for a conscious spread of commerce. 
This tendency was accompanied by the production and 
development of the means or implements, particularly the 
construction of those machines so important in agriculture, 
which are designed to immeasurably enhance man's power, 
to replace the same with multiplied force or to render it 
dispensable in so far as man has become merely the guider 
and controller of the machines which do the real work 
themselves. 
Side by side came the brilliant and effective series of 
creations destined to enhance production, with which, on 
the field of agriculture, the glorious name of Liebiq is most 
intimately connected. A mutual and productive reaction may 
be observed in the case of agriculture and, in the sphere of 
its operations, of the recognition of the effects of natural 
forces which has led to the most important triumphs of 
mechanics, physics and chemistry. 
In such circumstances it is not surprising, in fact it seems 
natural, that in the XIX^'^ century, particularly in the most 
highly developed States of Europe, there has been, and still 
is, a tendency to appropriate all territory that is only slightly 
adapted for agriculture, to transform any such territories as 
are fit for transformation and to place them at the disposal 
of intensive agriculture. 
We know that the regulation of rivers has been undertaken 
